Atheist Men: Snap Out Of It!

This week we’re telling YOU to snap out of it, men and especially leading men, of the freethought movement. No, we won’t name you, but you know who you are, and WE know who you are.  While the rest of us are doing our level best to bring women under our big tent, you are doing your level best to chase them away.

You might think that atheism and feminism would go together like baseball and hot dogs, Halloween and jack-o-lanterns, or catholic confessionals and masturbation.  After all, religion has done more to oppress women and rob them of their rights than any other institution.  Women have always had leading roles in the fight against the clergy which, of necessity, often meant fighting for their own rights as well.  Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, Simone de Beauvoir, Margaret Sanger, Mary Wollstonecraft and even Madalyn Murray O’Hair are heroes of feminism and the atheism which naturally flowed from it.  So ingrained is feminism as a part of freethought as a concept that it would take a nearly impossible amount of masculine casual dismissiveness to piss it off and drive most women out of the movement.  But us guys have managed, somehow! 

Hey, you, Mr. Bicycle Guy!  Don’t think we’re not on to your “he-said, she-said” soap-opera convention dramas.  Even if every one of the women who accuses you of sexually accosting her at a convention is lying, it behooves you to never get into situations where that sort of thing is possible.  Do your talk, then go to your hotel room.  Leave the young people to get drunk and tell tales without you.

And you, Mr. Blind Watchmaker!  Do you really have to belittle women like Rebecca Watson, who get accosted in elevators by creeps at SkeptiCons, just because there are still women having their genitals mutilated in East Africa?  Aren't they both wrong behaviors, even if one is far worse?  Don’t you think a guy as bright as you can at least figure out that the ones who should quit whining are the guys who are willing to do crap like that to women who are nice enough to hang out with us?

Hey, Mr. Letter-To-A-Christian-Nation Dude!  It shouldn't take a philosophy degree to figure out why women don’t join the atheist movement.  It’s not because they are inherently disinclined, or intellectually not wired for it, as you tend to argue.  The feminist movement is at least as large as the atheist one, larger even, and that’s where all the female atheists are.  It’s not that there are fewer atheist women out there.  They’re just doing something else.

They’re not joining us for good reason:  What self-respecting woman would want to hang out with a bunch of sexually impolite dickheads like us?

This is our movement, and we have to maintain it together.  And our conventions are especially places where we can’t let ourselves get carried away with inappropriate sexual advances on women.  Orgies are orgies and Cons are Cons, and we appear ridiculously stupid when we confuse the two.  Far be it from me to be anything other than a sexual libertine, but there’s a right way and a wrong way to go about getting a woman in your life, and clearly the wrong way is being too-forward at the atheism gatherings.  Want to join a swingers club?  Then join a swingers club!  Don’t try to make TAM into one! 

Fellow men of the freethought movement, by being a bunch of dicks, we've made our movement into a sausage-fest!  I hope the worst offenders among us are satisfied, because the rest of us guys sure aren't going to be!

Yes, I know, most men at freethought gatherings and conventions don’t act this way.  The vast majority of us are nice guys who wouldn't harm a fly.  But if we are to argue that a few bad apples spoil the barrel within Islam (and we should!) doesn't that same standard apply within our own camp?  We are capable of policing ourselves, and that means violating the guy code from time to time in being a cock-blocker.

After all, men will always outnumber women at freethought conventions if every woman who attends needs to bring along her own bodyguard!

Just be certain to treat our atheist comrades and sisters-in-arms with the respect they deserve!  With them, we must always play for keeps!  Let’s treat our women the way they were meant to be treated:  As equal partners and dearest of friends.  Let’s respect their wishes when it’s late and they just want to go sleep.  And let’s not invite them to play drinking games hoping to get lucky.  What are we, a bunch of frat-boys who need officials to lecture us about “yes meaning yes”?!  We don’t shit where we eat!  It’s not a difficult concept.

So, men and leading men of the freethought movement, we at the Sacred Cow Wursthaus take great pride in taking the jock strap you were too nerdy to wear, using it to give you the mother of all wedgies, and then letting it go to give you a well-earned snap where it hurts most!  You've earned it!  Fellow males of the freethought movement, SNAP OUT OF IT!

Eric

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